


the stars weep while the smoke rises

by oceaneyeslance



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gen, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, Minor Character Death, just a little something i made up, tw: war and terroristic environments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-05-18 20:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaneyeslance/pseuds/oceaneyeslance
Summary: Before being thrust headfirst into an intergalactic space battle, Lance had seen his share of bloodshed and suffering back on Earth. Seen, and experienced.-Or, a story of Lance and war.CURRENTLY REWRITING!!! updates every thursday!





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> tw: mentions of death, war, and terrorism. read at your own risk if you think any topics in this fic will be harmful.
> 
> terrorism is an ever growing thing, and i wondered what it would feel like for one of the paladins to have gone through something like that. so, naturally, i chose lance. living and growing up in a dictator ruled country played a part as well. it is not my intention to offend anyone, so keep that in mind. enjoy :)

A ringing in his ears woke the boy up.

His heartbeat echoed in his veins, erratic and quick. His eyes opened, and he was met with the view of a blurry, dusty wood floor. With heavy limbs he shakily rose from the floor onto his knees.

“Mamá?” He rasped, coughing as dust entered his lungs. _Where did all this dust come from?_ “Papá?”

His voice carried across the room. There was no answer back. He blinked the blurriness out of his eyes and observed his surroundings. 

He was facing one of the walls in his living room. Pictured that adorned the wall were skewed and some had fallen off their nails. The boy furrowed his eyebrows and picked himself up onto his feet, walking over to one of the fallen pictures and only stumbling once. He picked up the shattered picture frame, brushing off the broken glass and removing the photo.

 _What happened? Where did everyone go…_ He thought as he folded the photo and placed it into his pocket. A breeze ruffled his chocolate hair and he shuddered, just now seeing the rips and tears in his charred clothing. He spun around in a panic until he spotted the gaping, fiery hole in the opposite wall.

“Que es... “ The boy whispered. He ran over to the hole, tripping over burnt bricks and upturned floorboards. “Mamá?” He shouted as his feet touched the grass outside of his home. “Papá? Veronica, _anybody_ , por favor!”

An explosion sounded off in the distance, leaving a cloud of smoke and flames. The boy twisted his head, eyes wide as he took in the destruction around him. Houses were aflame and smoke tainted the orange sky. He could hear screams and gunshots in every direction.

His throat tightened and he felt like he couldn’t breathe, gasping to get air as tears streamed down his face. _Run, run, you need to run,_ his brain seemed to be screaming at him, but he couldn’t move. He could only see.

“-ance…”

His head whipped around towards the side of his house, finally gaining control of his body when he heard the whimper of his name.

His feet carried him to a body obscured in shadows, and only when he got closer was he able to recognize him.

“Papá!” The boy fell onto his knees next to his father, coughing raggedly and covered in crimson blood. “Papá, what’s going on, why is this happening-”

“Lance, I-” A wet cough interrupted him. “Lance, mijo, you need to run. Find your madre and your hermanos and leave.”

“But papá, what about you? I can’t leave you, you could…” He trailed off, leaving obvious words hanging in the air.

“Mijo, I love you so much,” his father said, raising a shaky hand to cup the boy’s face. “I will always love you no matter what, ¿verdad?”

The boy sniffled and nodded. Gently the hand came to his chest and pushed. “Leave, mijo. Protect your family.”

The hand fell and his father’s eyes stared into his, dull and lifeless.

“Papá?” He whispered, shaking the body’s shoulder’s. “Papá, wake up, please, _wake up…_ ” 

He sobbed as arms wrapped around him, pulling him away from his father’s corpse. “Lance, Lance, mi cielito, he’s gone…” He recognized his mother’s soft voice in his ears, and he turned to hug her tightly. “It is dangerous here, amor. We have to go.”

Veronica, Marco, and Luis stood behind her. _They’re safe,_ he thought, but they had soot on their bodies and ripped clothes and tears dripping down their faces. 

He followed them down a road leading out of the destroyed town. They ran fast, passing once familiar buildings now aflame; the homes of his friends and shops he visited every day. He didn’t see any people while fleeing, but sometimes he would catch glimpses of bloody figures before his mother pulled his eyes away from the sight. 

Fear hung thick in the air as they reached the end of the debris and destruction. He looked behind him at the flames and the explosions and listened to the faint gunshots fading away.

That was the last time Lance ever saw his childhood home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:  
> 'que es...' = 'what is...'  
> 'mijo' = 'my son'  
> 'verdad' = 'right'  
> 'mi cielito' = 'sweetheart', but i intended it to mean 'little sky', as cielo means sky  
> 'amor' = 'love'
> 
> rewrite of chapter one - 8/13/2018  
> fun times!
> 
> tumblr: https://ocean-eyes-lance.tumblr.com/
> 
> instagram: mortdoggy


	2. two

Lance was ten when a terrorist group attacked his community. He was only ten when his father died in his arms.

Sometimes he wonders if others died alongside him.

But he doesn’t want to know.

They stayed at a run down motel miles away from the attack. They had walked all night and into the afternoon, stopping when his mother spotted the motel. Nobody asked them about their torn clothes or the black soot on their skin. 

His feet ached as he flopped down onto the nearest bed. His siblings and his mother hadn’t said a word during their trip, unless it was to ask if someone was feeling okay. _“Protect your family,”_ his father had told him. As he watched them try to get comfortable in their cramped motel room, he decided that it was his first priority.

 _Family over yourself_ , he repeated in his mind, until he fell into a fitful sleep.

-

Sometimes he wondered if his father had gone up with the stars, watching over him from the other side.

As often as he could, Lance would sneak out to the roof of wherever he was staying at to stare at the night sky. It was a habit he kept for years following. The stars would never leave him.

 _“I will always love you,”_ Lance replayed the scene in his head over and over. He hated thinking about it, about how he watched the life drift away from his father, but he couldn’t help it. 

Something like that couldn’t be easily forgotten about. Not to Lance.

-

Lance and his family had been all over Cuba before his mother finally got enough money to support them somewhere else.

Lance was 13 when he moved to Florida. His mother had gotten a job within their first week of arriving, and within the next month they had their own house again. They lived in an actual community, with nice neighbours and a large, air conditioned house. For the first time, Lance had his own room. 

Years went by in their house in Florida, and Lance’s family had finally pieced themselves together after the horror they experienced. Lance helped out wherever he could; comforting one of his siblings if they had a nightmare, cooking dinner on some nights when his mother was stressed, anything to just help.

 _Family over yourself_ , he reminded himself every day, not like he needed to though. The words were a part of him now, his life motto. He lived to protect his family, like his father had told him to.

He couldn’t fail him again.

-

When Lance was 15 he enrolled into the Galaxy Garrison at three in the morning.

He spent until midnight mulling over the idea, thinking of the pros and cons, until he said screw thinking and took the online pretest on his phone. Even since before the _accident_ (as he refused to call it anything but that) he was obsessed with space and the thrill of the unknown that lurked beyond their solar system. It was his dream to go to space, to be a pilot.

But behind his excitement, dread sat deep in his gut. He would be leaving his family, something he thought he would never do. But if he actually made it and became a hotshot pilot, then he could support his mother and she wouldn’t have to take double the shifts she would or get another part time job. He hated seeing her struggle through this hell they called life.

There laid another problem; if he would even get in at all. His education was okay, but not the best for a child always on the run. He was talkative, loud, and cocky (mostly to hide his more deeper feelings), three characteristics that teachers usually did not like. Maybe his determination would show and he’d be lucky enough to get picked. Maybe not, though.

He looked out of his open window and at the stars, the constellations and clusters calming his doubtful mind. He wondered if his dad would be proud of him.

He fell asleep to the chirps of crickets and the cool night air blowing against his face.

-

Some weeks after Lance signed up for the Garrison, a letter arrived in their mailbox with his name stamped onto it in big, bold letters.

Letters never came to Lance. Neither did boxes or presents, unless it was something his mother bought them. The only things that filled the mailbox were bills or random advertisements for landscaping or house painters. So when his mother grabbed the letter for Lance with curiosity in her eyes, she knew something big was inside.

She opened it and read it thoroughly, eyes widening as she took in the words on the cream coloured paper.

Then she read it again, just for extra measure.

“LANCE, TRAE TU TRASERO ACÁ _AHORA!_ ”

Needless to say, Lance got an earful from his mother for a good thirty minutes and then a bone-crushing hug afterwards.

“I’m so proud of you, mijo,” she whispered. “But next time, you better tell me stuff like this before I die of a heart attack, Lancito.”

He laughed and apologized through his tears. He actually got _in_. Sure, he got the cargo pilot rank when he wanted fighter pilot, but he couldn’t complain. He could never complain. He had gotten into the school of his dreams. He felt higher than the clouds at that moment.

Of course, when he got there, it all had to go downhill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:  
> 'trae tu trasero acá ahora' = 'get your butt here now'
> 
> just a filler chapter of lance's childhood after the attack and before he got to the garrison! i have so many new ideas for this fic, i'm glad i chose to rewrite it! :)
> 
> tumblr: https://ocean-eyes-lance.tumblr.com/ OR https://mortdoggy.tumblr.com/
> 
> instagram: mortdoggy


	3. three

It was odd how Lance’s best decision turned out to be his worst in a matter of weeks.

He was enjoying a lovely night in a school he definitely did _not_ deserve to get into, with a freakin’ fighter pilot rank too, and then he was rescuing his hero, and then he was flying far away from home. From everything he knew and loved. 

Far away from his family.

 _Dios_ , his family.

Every single waking minute Lance thought of them. He would save the tears for his room, isolated from the others, or in the observatory, where he would stare at Earth as it rotated slowly. He wondered how they were holding up. Sometimes he wondered if they were still searching for him. Or, if the Garrison covered up their disappearances like they did to the Kerberos crew. All he seemed to be doing every day was wondering.

He tried not to dwell on these thoughts, though. Saving the universe was his top priority now, not that. _Family over yourself_ turned into _the whole universe over yourself_ in a day.

But he couldn’t help but wonder if he left, would someone easily take his place?

-

Being in yet another warzone almost every day was not something Lance had asked for. The team didn’t know about his struggles as a child, or his father, or his hometown. They only knew of the beaches and the pretty sky and the nice memories. 

They certainly didn’t know about his lack of sleep because of his old nightmares and now the new ones.

They didn’t know of his panic attacks he tried to desperately to hide when they were in the midst of a battle.

They didn’t know about the guilt he felt as he shot a soldier, because in those moments he felt exactly like the ones who killed his dad and many others.

Sounds of phantom gunshots rang through his ears when he tried to sleep, and when he actually managed to shut his brain down he was usually awoken by nightmares of death and war. He assumed he gets a measly four or five hours of sleep each night, but it was fine. He could deal with it. He would _have_ to deal with it.

In other words, being a defender of the universe sucked.

-

After the accident, Lance found out that punching something would usually quell his anger and despair whenever he would be rudely awakened by a nightmare.

As a kid, he would hit his pillows a few times before flopping onto them, exhausted and emotionally drained. Now, he would spend hours in the training room in the early mornings, when no one was awake and the castle was quiet. He would set the difficulty to as high as he could take, and _fight._

He rarely used his bayard when venting with the sparring bots, since all he really wanted was something to physically hit. The soreness of his fists and the banging against the metal robots would distract his thoughts from the memories he had dreamed. Sure, he would get bloody and bruised knuckles afterwards, but it took the pain away, in a sense.

Lance never wore armour when fighting too. If he got hit, so be it, it was just another distraction from his mind.

He never got found in the training room either. He wondered if he wanted someone to stumble across him, sweaty and angry and _tired_ , just so he could spill everything he was feeling.

But in the end, it was his stupid problem, not theirs. They didn't deserve to have another burden on their minds when saving the universe was hard enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:  
> 'dios' = 'god'
> 
> next chapter will actually have some exciting angsty things happen!! ALSO, updates are now every thursday <3
> 
> tumblr: https://ocean-eyes-lance.tumblr.com/ OR https://mortdoggy.tumblr.com/
> 
> instagram: mortdoggy


	4. four

Lance knew that acknowledging his father’s death was a good part of moving on and getting better, but anything that reminded him of when he died he tended to avoid. But when holding the body of a dying alien that he was supposed to _save_ , awoke memories he never wanted to think of.

They were fighting a ground battle. The Galra had struck the heart of the planet, their capital city, from the dense forests around it. It was very populated and nobody suspected a thing. 

It was almost too easy for the Galra.

In the end, Voltron won. But the Galra had more than enough time to leave their mark. Chaos was everywhere. Buildings aflame and aliens screaming in their native tongue surrounded him.

All Lance could focus on was the one he couldn’t make it to.

His helmet was thrown aside as he cradled the alien, putting pressure on the wound leaking blood onto his hands. It was a dark purple colour, staining his armour and hands as he begged the alien to stay strong, to be calm, to _please survive._

It couldn’t happen again. _Please_ , not again.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I- I can’t…” Lance said in a panic, eyes wide and afraid.

The alien coughed weakly, it’s breathing raspy and shaky as it grasped onto Lance’s hands, pulling them away gently. “It’s… okay.” It’s voice gurgled with blood and Lance choked on a sob as he felt it’s body becoming heavier. “Not… your fault, good paladin-...”

“I was too slow, I’m sorry, it… it should have been me!” Lance cried as the alien shook its head.

“No… You are worth more than you know,” it said, almost in a whisper. “You must-” A coughing fit interrupted it, before it’s eyes slowly shut. “You must go. Protect… my people, good paladin…”

Lance just stared as the life was drained from the alien’s face.

-

Lance didn’t even remember hands shaking his shoulders and voices telling him to get back to the castle. All he could look at was the dead body and the blood on his hands. _Oh, the blood on his hands._

He could vaguely feel tears dripping down his face, and the _‘no no no, please no, not again’_ s coming out of his mouth as he was gently ushered onto the castle.

His hands were sticky and dark. There was blood on his chest, on his _hands_ , and he could see his father’s face, a dead body in the darkness, and he was supposed to _protect them!_ They died in his hands, _by his hands_ , so many have died and he couldn’t save them, his father _died_ \--

And then, he was thrown into a pod and succumbed to darkness.

-

_Sometimes he wonders if it's all been a dream._

_His father would be in the next room over, sleeping with his mother. Veronica would be in the bed across from him, with Marco on the top bunk. Luis would be snoring underneath him, on the lower bunk._

_Their house would still be there. The house in the small, risk-filled town in Cuba._

_It wasn’t much, but it was always enough._

_He’d give anything for it all to be fixed. Nothing would be bad, the attack wouldn’t happen, his father wouldn’t die. Maybe the Galra would cease to exist, and the universe wouldn’t need him to leave Earth to become a defender of the universe._

_But it’s all he could ever do. Just dream._

_It was always just a dream._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this came out kinda late!! i totally forgot to post it on thursday and i realized that when i was at school without my phone :)) also sorry for the kinda short chapter, i couldn't really find something to grip onto when writing this soooo yeah,, but next chapter will be longer!
> 
> tumblr: https://ocean-eyes-lance.tumblr.com/
> 
> instagram: mortdoggy


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